During the Friday meeting in Bratislava in Slovakia, the European officials expressed concern Athens is falling behind schedule in its efforts to reform the economy.
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Greece’s left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, together with Italy’s Renzi, French President Francois Hollande and the leaders of Portugal, Cyprus and Malta, will also be discussing investment and job creation, as well as security.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and other leaders in southern Europe called for action to boost flagging growth in the bloc on Friday, saying they needed a bigger say in Europe.
“Visegrad countries can not be allowed to dominate the debate on Europe’s future”, Tsipras said in an interview with French daily Le Monde on Friday.
The summit in Athens drew criticism from German lawmaker Manfred Weber who chairs the European Peoples Party Group in the European parliament.
Noting that Mediterranean nations were pivotal to the future of the bloc in view of their location at its “front line”, Tsipras said the summit was a “positive contribution to the dialogue on the future of Europe”, noting however that “we do not want to become another divisive initiative”.
Tsipras also urged European leaders to promote more pro-growth policies, saying it would be “a huge mistake to see growth as a process that creates deficits”.
Under the so-called Dublin Regulation, asylum seekers may be sent back to their first country of arrival in the European Union to have their application processed there. But EU officials suggest they are prepared for delays.
Yet another German politician also spoke up about the “Club Med” meeting, saying he was anxious the southern countries could form a “coalition of redistributors” that would put the EU’s financial stability at risk.
“We need to reach a European asylum system that is realistic and shows solidarity, instead of shifting the burden to entry states”, Greece’s junior foreign minister for European affairs, Nikos Xydakis said in an interview with Agence-France Presse.
He said the cases of Spain and Portugal, which have deficits above the European Union limits, also would be discussed.
More than a million refugees and migrants traveled from Turkey to Greece and on to other European Union countries.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants, many fleeing wars in the Middle East, have arrived in Greece over the past year from Turkey hoping to move on to wealthier western Europe, but many are now trapped in detention centers.
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Budget disagreements notwithstanding, Berlin has proven very sympathetic to the southern countries on migration.
